How To ACTUALLY Use The Law Of Attraction To MAKE MONEY TODAY! | Dan Lok & Lewis Howes

The marketplace cares about one thing, it cares about value. It doesn't care about our solving stories, it doesn't care about our victim mentality, it doesn't care about how hard we work, it doesn't even care how much experience we have or how many years we've been in business. The marketplace doesn't care. The marketplace has no emotion. The marketplace only cares about value and what determines our value is, I think.

You gotta have a dream. The School of Greatness.

Really?

Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes. I'm curious because you had a number of failures as an entrepreneur, many failed business attempts, which your failures were probably other people's successes. So I want to caveat that for a minute that you probably succeeded even though it was a failure to you. I didn't know how to make money until I turned 25. I never thought I'd be an entrepreneur. I thought I'd be finding somewhere to be a part of a team and helping build a mission with someone else. And I was really a team player. as an athlete. I wasn't the quarterback. I wasn't the rah rah leader. I was more like throw me the ball, let me make a play with.

The skills that I have.

Let me do my thing. Yeah. Let me do my thing. I don't want the pressure of being a leader and all that stuff in sports. But out of necessity, I needed to learn how to make money because of a number of instances in my life that occurred. I'm curious for people that have never thought of themselves as an entrepreneur, excuse me, who've never thought they were an entrepreneur, but they really want to be. Like myself, I didn't think I'd be, but I wanted to make some money. What advice would you give to starting out if they have no skills as an entrepreneur, if they've never made money before, they're not sure if they can even do it, what advice would you give? Should they even try or maybe are they not the right fit for that?

This may not be a popular answer. I used to believe that entrepreneurs are made, not born. But now I think as I'm a little bit older, a little bit more gray hair, a little bit more mature, I think for some of us, we are actually born to be entrepreneurs. That we want to do our own thing. It just, until some incidents happen, it didn't ignite that within us, right? I don't think entrepreneurs, you can acquire certain entrepreneurial skills, but I think it's in our DNA. There are certain people they just want to create, they want to innovate, they want to build something like it's in our personalities and our DNA is in our blood. So I don't think that someone, if they just work harder, that they would become an entrepreneur. If you look at the small businesses, you know, that some say 90, some say 95% of small businesses fail in the first five years. You look at in this same take US example, 30 million businesses, only 4% ever exceed $1 million a year in revenue. So 96% of the businesses never get past that. 4%, right? Never get past the 1 million revenue. So if you're 1 million in revenue, you're listening to this, you're watching this, you're already the top 4% of entrepreneurs. If you're doing 10 million a year, you have 0.4% of the entrepreneurs, 0.4%. So that's a tiny, tiny percentage. Just like, you know, Brother, let's think about in athletic world, right? How many athletes could get to a certain level?

Yeah, it's like there's millions in the high school level, and then to get to college, it's 3%, and then it's.

Exactly 3% of 3% to get to professional level.

Yeah.

So is it talent, maybe? Is it just hard work, maybe? But there's so many other factors. But I think it's, they either have it or they don't. The difference is just the skills.

And for me, again, I didn't have it until a number of instances in my life forged me to become one out of necessity where I was like, I'm broke, you know, I have no money. I gotta figure this out. And it was almost like it, It made me be entrepreneurial out of necessity. Otherwise, I'd have been just as happy like, hey, someone else has got all the pressure and all the financial headache and the stress of losing it all. Let me just catch the ball and score touchdowns.

Yes.

You know, that's a fun job. You don't have to worry about just.

Score big plays, you know? And then when I think entrepreneurship, it teaches us something about ourselves, right? Through this journey, we learn about our own weaknesses. We learn about who we are, we have to deal with, a lot of like the inner demons, the inner conflicts and a lot of issues, right? Even now, all of us, people look at us and say, oh, you know, Louis has no problem, Dan has no problems, believe me, we have problems.

I did a five-hour therapy session this last weekend.

There you go.

Going into some dark stuff that I thought I'd already recovered and healed, but realized, oh, it's still coming up for me in a different area of my personal life.

It manifests, right?

It's important for me to always have coaches. I know you're always investing in training and coaches and mentorship and leadership around you to support you. What is the biggest demon that you still face today on the inner world that you have yet to fully overcome? Maybe you started working on it years ago but it still comes up. That dark shadow or whatever you want to call it still rears its head in situations whether it be personal life or professional.

Ego. Ego. I say that our ego is not our amigo. That when we are, it gets easy to say, hey, we have accomplished a degree of success and we feel like, oh, we know it and we don't want to listen. But it's always having that beginner's mindset, I think, ego. But ego is not arrogance. our blind spots, our own biases, right? Where, well, I always know how closing works, I always know how marketing works, I don't know how leadership works, but there are always new things that are coming down the pipeline, there are new things that we should learn. So I think ego, it's keeping that in check all the time.

And what would you say is your biggest insecurity still? Even if you've overcome it, it's still a little bit there.

I would say because I mean, let's look at it in terms of mainstream, right? That with what I do, there aren't many, if you call that influencer space, it's called the influencer space, or however we will define that space, there are not a lot of Asian faces, right? It's just a fact that you look at the one guy that made it, quote unquote, But that's still there. And I still face that. I mean, I remember in the beginning of building my social media following, I could tell you like Louis, most of the hate and negative comments, they are more leaning towards racist type comments. Yep, yeah, yeah, most of them. I think the first big chunk of it.

It was just, what, just saying stuff about your race or it wasn't even commenting on the content, it was just-.

Yeah, Chinese, yeah, no, not the content, yeah, but like that kind of stuff. Yes.

Interesting.

And I still face that. I still face that in some less, but I still face that.

Does that affect you when you see that or you just kind of just brush it off now?

No, no. In the beginning, it affected me a lot because it was like, oh, I'm creating content, I'm building my followings. And because of, I'm also, as you know, my personality, I'm very direct, right? So, you know, it rubs people the wrong way. It could be. Not that I want to be rude, I just, that's me. That's my personality. Yeah, I'm just, yeah, it's just my personality. I don't, so because of that, I think today it's less. It's like, there's a difference, right? In the beginning, it's like, who the hell are you? You know, who are you and this and that? And it's like, and it's like, you're no good. And then when you are good, like when you are good enough that people can't deny that, then it's like, okay, they kind of accept that you're good. But they're still there's still a little bit of that like hey, you know.

So they'll try to find they can't criticize your content, but they'll criticize your whatever yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I get all that around baby face. I get all that. I mean, I now I laugh at it because some of them are quite creative They're actually quite funny. They are quite funny. I have to say it's interesting.

I used to defend a pretty much every negative comment and, oh, wow. I don't know, negative review that I would get my first few years, years ago.

Yes.

I would try to defend and get people to like me who were saying negative things about me. And I remember one of my coaches saw this when I responded to some negative comment online and he called me, he said, you,'re just giving these people your power. He's like, just say thank you for the feedback and move on or say nothing. and move on because putting energy and attention into the 1% of people that are leaving nasty comments is not supporting your mission. Yeah.

And the bigger the following, think about if we have, let's say, a million followers, well, if 10% hating you, that's like 100,000 people. Like if you think about putting 100,000 people in a stadium, that's a lot of people. That's just a lot of people, right? And we can't control how and people don't hate us, they hate themselves anyway. Like it's something that we say, something that we do, who we are, it triggers something within them. And the truth is most haters actually don't know us. Like they don't know you, they don't know me, they don't know us. They came to the conclusions or they make a quick judgment based on a five second video. Like that's how they do it and that's all part of it. So it used to bother me but now It's like, no, I don't even spend time on that.

Yeah, man. I'm curious about it. I want to talk about money for a while. What do you think are three things that poor people do that the rich people don't do that you notice?

I think, first of all, poor people have a negative association with money. I'll give you a perfect example from just last week. This has happened to me literally, like in real life. I was driving, me and my wife driving the Bentley, right? to downtown and pass through a not so good neighborhood, kind of like, it's called Hastings in Vancouver, kind of like the hood, okay? 'Cause we're going to Chinatown. We stopped at the red light. There's one guy that came to my car, spit on my car, on the window, right? And then gave me the finger. And then walk away.

So, you didn't say anything, you didn't.

Do anything, you didn't- It was just that, it's just a car. just the car, right? So you would see a lot of people, they think, oh, they say, I want more money. Hey, Louis, I want to have more success. I want to have more wealth. But deep down, actually they have a negative association with money. Because I always do this exercise with my students. So imagine this. Imagine you're walking down the street, you hear this loud engine sound, right? And then you see a black Lamborghini, just zoom, zoom, zoom, right? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Now, most people would say, oh, he's an a**, like, what a pr***. If it's a woman, oh, she's a gold digger. Or if it's this young person, oh, this probably from, you know, the daddy's money, like all this stuff. They can go through this very, very quickly, all the negative stuff, right? And then a small percentage would be, oh, that might be an entrepreneur, right? That may be actually a father of three. Right? That he's a hard working entrepreneur, he's been working hard and this is a little treat that he gives for himself and he only drives it, you know, maybe on the weekends. That never comes to mind. It's all the negative that comes to mind, right? So I would say that negative association with money, consciously or subconsciously, they don't even know it.

Yeah, when you resent someone with money or you resent money, why would money come to you?

Or people with money.

Right.

Why would, why would you be surrounded by people who have money or why would you attract more wealth into your life if you're resenting it, right?

Yeah, no. So they, so it's like even the, so that's the first thing is poor people have negative, they have association with money. The second one is they don't talk about money.

Gosh, I say this all the time, man.

Tell me more. Yeah, they avoid conversations. Like it's like a taboo subject. Oh, why you talk about money all the time? Like, oh, we don't talk about, it's like we don't talk about that at dinner table. You don't have conversation with your kids about money, you don't have conversation with your spouse about money. It somehow is a bad thing, right? It's like this. And think of money, the best way to describe this is think of money as a person in your life. Treat money as a person. So imagine if you think about- We.

Don'T talk about that person.

We don't talk about you. And in fact, I think you're the root of all evil. I think you are greedy. I think you're not that important to me. Do you think this person will stay around? I don't think so. They would be like, I don't want to be around. But money is not that important. Money doesn't grow on trees. Or there are more important things than money. All this stuff, right? Then money is not going to stick around. So if you think of it that way. But on the other hand, if you talk about money, you cherish money, not to be a slave of money. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about, hey, you know, I value you. I value money. I save you. I invest you, like, you know, intelligently, right? Like, you think of it that way, then money's like, okay, you treat me good, I'm gonna stay around.

Yeah.

Right, you think of like that as almost like a lover, you know, I love you, right? Oh yeah, that's good, I'm gonna love you back. Oh, I don't like you. You know, I'm not gonna like your back. So that would be the second one.

Okay, and the third?

The third one is it has to do with value. So poor people want money without delivering more value versus you and I, we understand the marketplace cares about one thing, it cares about value. It doesn't care about our solving stories, it doesn't care about our victim mentality, it doesn't care about how hard we work, it doesn't even care how much experience we have or how many years we've been in business. The marketplace doesn't care. The marketplace has no emotion. The marketplace only cares about value and what determines our value is our skill sets. So think about this where if someone is very motivated, they think positively, they got no skill sets to offer to the marketplace, they're not gonna make money. On the other hand, you've got someone with like, let's say someone comes to you, Louis, it's like okay attitude, but he's saying that, Hey Louis, I can help you with the Facebook ad. I can spend a dollar, I can give you $5 back. If T has a skill set like that, you'll be like, okay, I'm gonna give you some money to help me with my ads.

Right.

So it's the skill set I think a lot of people are missing. They don't understand that it's the mindset, which is what you teach, combined with your skill set, then you've got something that works. So I would say those are the.

Key, those are powerful. I'm curious about, I wanna follow up on this, Skill set, there's a lot of people who have all the degrees and credibility in the world but don't have the self-belief. So, what is more important? Skill set, actually being skilled at something, the ability to believe in yourself with the skill set and coupling the two, or the ability to package your skills to transfer for money in exchange? Because a lot of people can't position or package and then sell. They might have the skill set, they might have the belief and confidence, but they don't know how to package it to transfer money. Which one of those threes is more important?

I would say I used to believe it's the mindset, but now I would say I'm leaning more towards the skill set. And I'll explain why. Because let's say your digital marketer, I'm going to use an example, your digital marketer, you don't really believe in yourself, but let's say you know how to close, you know how to communicate your value, and you're good at what you do. Well, and someone comes to you and say, Hey, Louis, you're so good at digital marketing. Let me give you 5,000 a month retainer to do my social. Well, that changes your belief system very quickly, right? So I almost like to use that as an environment. It's like I teach all my students. If you have not made a dollar closing or you're not a made a dollar copywriting, whatever that you do, you make the first dollar. You make the first dollar.

That's the best feeling, that first dollar, man.

That first dollar, man. It's like podcast. Oh, you've never made a dollar, Any money from podcast, just make your first dollar. That's the difference, what's the difference between professional and amateur professional gets paid. Make your first dollar, now it changes, okay, maybe I could do this. Maybe I'm pretty good. Maybe I could get better. Maybe I can do this full time. Maybe I can make a career out of this. It's easier to use the environment to shift our beliefs than try to change it just within ourselves. That's what I believe it. Our environment is infinitely more powerful than our willpower. Way more powerful.

Our environment in what way?

If you don't want to get fit, hang around with people who are fit. You eat better, you will want to exercise. If you don't smoke, you hang around with all your friends and smokers, guarantee you will smoke. You don't do drugs, you hang around with people who do drugs, you do drugs. We can't help but be influenced by the environment. So I say, why not put ourselves in an environment that is supportive of our goals. I'm very, very careful with that, very careful. And I say the same thing.

This idea of entrepreneurship has been a sexy word and idea, especially in the last five years with social media and everyone kind of flashing this lifestyle, Gary Vee, talking about it a lot and everything. But as you know, it's hard for a lot of entrepreneurs to make a lot of money and sustain it. It's hard to get there, but then it's hard to sustain it. for a while when a pandemic hits or something else, people aren't prepared for that. Do you think it's possible for people who have great skills, who are part of a great team, of a great company that never want to start their own thing and be an entrepreneur, but are valued, are part of a team, are growing with a company, making an impact in this company and the mission that they have, do you think it's possible for people that aren't entrepreneurs to become wealthy? And if so, what are the strategies they need to be applying right now in order to start having their money work for them as opposed to only working for money?

I love that question. I've never been asked that question and I have a very good answer. One thing I learned from my mentor, he said, Dan, you don't get rich on income, you get rich on equity. You don't get rich on income. So if for someone with the skill sets, think about a ship.

Right?

There's only one captain. We're going from here to there. So you look at Jack Ma who started Alibaba. Yeah, Jack Ma is very successful. Well, but the initial founders, they didn't do too bad either.

Right?

Right. So you have the people who maybe you are the founding members, the founding team with a startup that is going places with the right visionary, with the right founder and CEO. which by the way, that's also, I think only certain people fits that profile. That's what I believe in. Okay, that's what I believe in. And I learned that from through culture index, which is like a survey that people take to see what personality that fits. So only certain people are fit for their CEO profiles, but everybody else, they can still contribute. And if they have equity, they participate, they can still do very well financially. In fact, it's like if naturally they know they're not the CEO personalities and materials, if they just try to be that, it doesn't work anyway. It just doesn't work. But it doesn't mean they are not valued.

Yeah.

I mean, to me, I play a role in my company because I have certain skill set, right? But I cannot do what I do better than what, like my team, they have certain skills that are way better than me. Like just this morning, we had a technical challenge. I was like, my team could fix that. I don't know how to handle that. I just- you- were trying to set.

Up Zoom before this, yeah.

Yeah, like, I'm like, I have no idea. I like, I don't know, no joke aside, I actually don't know how to turn on the camera.

There you go.

I literally do not how to turn, I don't know where the button is.

You gotta do the iPhone though, so that's easy.

That's easy. I can handle that, but like this, the XD stuff, I cannot handle. So what I'm saying is, you look at that, that if they are, they participate in a vehicle, in a good market that's growing, trending, and if they can be part of their founding members, they can get equity. early on, they could do very well.

And what if they can't get equity or they're not early on and they join a team after 100 employees and.

It'S- They're not as good. So it's the timing of it, right? The timing of it, is it you want it to be too early, higher risk, too late, then you don't get as much upside. And also depends on your skill set, right? What's the skill set you bring to the table? But they could do very well. It's called intrapreneurship, right?

Intrapreneurship, yeah. And what are some things that people could do if they say, oh, that's not me, but I'm making a good salary and I'm going to be making more money, what could I be doing with my money so that it earns me more? What would you suggest?

Every one of us needs to be an investor. Doesn't matter how we make the money. I teach a concept called the Wealth Triangle, right? Which is kind of got three parts. The first part is what I call high income skills. And high incomes, I define high income skills as skills that could make you more than $10,000 a month. okay, 10, 000 a month. Because I noticed something about human beings. Whenever we get past that six figure Mark annually, something shifts that I rarely see someone go past six figure and go back to 50, 000 a year. It becomes a new Comfort. It's a very.

So you know how once you know how to get there, you could stay there.

It becomes. It becomes a very. It's a fascinating thing to see. So I think that. $10,000 a month, $120,000 a year high income skills. And then the second part is what I call a scalable business. A scalable business, not just any business, but a business that is scalable, such as a software business, an influencer business, or e-com business, a scalable business. And then you have what I call high return investments. And I define high return investments as investments that would give you a 10% return year in and year out. 10% return or more. So you look at this wealth triangle. Now here's the thing, if you have high income skills, you're already earning income. Your scalable business gives you profits and your high return investment builds your net worth, right? Wealthy people talk about net worth. They don't talk about income, right? They talk about net worth. So you look at this, now let me ask you this question, Louis. If someone who is like, I'm making $30,000 a year. I want to get into some real estate stuff. You're like, you don't have a high.

Income to put into it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you have high income skills?

No.

Do you have a scalable business? No. I want to buy some properties with no money down. Kind of risky. Kind of risky. Right? Because if you follow this, the first thing you got to focus on is increase your income, meaning develop skill sets that the marketplace would value. do that first. Now, with a scalable business, you can start one or you can also invest in one. It doesn't always mean you have to start one. So you can invest in one that throws off profits and then you've got your high return investments. See, when we come to high return investments, it's about the preservation of the capital. It's not about getting the maximum return. We don't need it to get 50%, I just want 10%. Because I'm making money with these two things. Right. This, I just don't want you just.

Don'T want that sitting in a bank and not making anything.

That's right. That's right. So now the return off capital, off investment, not just on investment, now you're making more income, you're becoming more valuable. Hopefully income increases every year. Your profit goes up, you take extra cash, you put in higher return investments, gives you more peace of mind. Then this is the same well triangle goes a million, 10 million, 100 million is actually the same. Yeah, it's exactly the same.

If you're looking at a 21 year old, 25 year old who's about to get started in whatever, a job, an entrepreneurship endeavor, and you're looking at them and you have a 20 minute conversation with them, what would you say is the number one sign that they would be successful? What would they have to embody, talk about, not talk about, in order for you to be like, you know what, this person is, in the next two, three years, I want to watch them because it's going to be a trajectory or at least they're going to be growing in some way. What would be that sign that someone would be successful?

Someone who has the obsession to learn. Because I remember many years ago, I was attending a two-day workshop on digital marketing. At the time, it's funny, don't laugh at me, but it was a workshop and the instructor was teaching how to do pop-up on a website. We're talking many, many years ago when it was a big thing, adding a pop-up, right? And I remember day one he taught us, okay, if you want to get more opt-in subscribers, add a pop-up to your website and this is how you do it. Okay, great. So it's a few hundred of us in the hotel room. So then I went back to the hotel room and I talked to my coding guys, okay, let's add this piece of code, we'll capture more opt-in on the website, great. And then we were getting more opt-ins, like just that evening. So day two, the instructor comes back and says, hey, so I taught you how to add opt-in and stuff, how many players have you done it? No one. I put on my hand, I thought everybody did it, but no one did. And I was like, this is kind of fascinating.

Right?

And then I share, I said, yeah, it actually works. We added on, added the power yesterday, we get more subscribers, it's awesome. And that's when I learned something about myself that I'm very eager to learn, I'm very eager to execute, very eager to execute. And if I want to look at someone who's 21 years old, if they, wherever they want to be, if they have that obsession to learn and execute, the action takers, action takers are money makers, right? that I would say you can see it in his or her eyes that they are action takers. Not like, oh, making excuses, I don't know, I'm not ready, timing is not right, I'm not good enough. No, they just execute. Yeah.

I think it's not about being afraid, it's about just being willing to take action even when you don't know what you're doing. I think a lot of people, they don't know what they're doing and it cripples them. and they say, oh, I've got to figure out what to do first. And then when I feel comfortable, then I can go do it. But I feel like when you're talking about it, it's like, I didn't know what I was doing. I was just like, I just need to make some money. Let me go figure this out and embarrass myself and make mistakes and make a couple bucks.

I say that you want to act as if all your dreams have come true, and then you challenge your reality to catch up. It's much more powerful when you act as you're already there. Think about this. I'm gonna ask you this. When you had the idea for the podcast, not this, not the Lewis House today, I'm talking about in the beginning, right? Not the followers that like in the beginning. At the time, there's no credibility. You were just getting started. There's no name, right? It's like you try to get people on the show. Well, I don't know if I want to be, right? All that stuff. But now people are honored to be like they would be like they'll knock on your doors, hey, Louis, can I be on your show?

Right?

But think about all these years in the very beginning, at least from my observation, and correct me, this is, this is wrong. I saw that you were already acting as, hey, you know what? I'm, I'm a brand.

Right.

I'm gonna, my show is going to have tens of millions, hundreds of millions of downloads.

Absolutely. So, yeah, I started, I started investing in my my design and my brand. Yes.

What is the example that I would.

Want to look at? Yes. I would book this person if I would go on their show, if Oprah would call me, if Ellen would call me, what would I need to look like? And Ellen did call you.

Exactly, yeah.

It's like, there you go. What would I need to look like to be a New York Time bestseller before I wrote a New York Time bestseller? Like, what would the branding need to be? What would the messaging need to be? What would the results need to be in order to get there? And I just started acting as with that vision in mind.

There you go.

And it kind of goes into this, segues into the law of attraction, which I'm curious your thoughts on the law of attraction when it comes to manifesting money, when it comes to manifesting your dreams, manifesting goals, the dream partner, whatever it may be for someone. In your opinion, how does the law of attraction work and in what way does it work best for money, business, health, relationships? What do you feel?

I'm a very strong believer in law of attraction. I made a video on YouTube about this as well. But law of attraction, it's basically thoughts of things, right? Everything is energy and you become what you think about. Essentially, that's what it means. But that's just one of the laws. You have law of gravity, you have laws of cause and effect, I think whatever we do, we need to learn and understand these other laws exist, law of action. So it's not just law of attraction. It's like you're trying to do a math equation. You only know a plus. But there's minus, there's equal sign, there's a lot of things that bracket. There are a lot of things you could use to make an equation work. But that, oh, I only know a plus sign. So when you've got, it's like when you've got a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? And people just utilize that and they don't look at everything else. So I believe in it. I believe in having the vision board, but also believe in having other things like where you think about even the law of realism, right? Even the law of cause and effect, all these things. So yes, I believe in it, but it's just one, it's like, Think of it as like one or two percent of the equation.

Yeah.

But then it's the rest of the equations.

How have you seen it work for your life or business, the law of attraction?

So, perfect example. Many years ago, I had a dream of getting my first, I was young, 20-something years old. One of my dream car was at.

The- A couple of years ago.

A couple of years ago, 20, 20, 20 years ago. Thank you, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I hope I stay young there, like that. But what was my dream car? I was driving the Master 3 at the time, the hatchback. My dream was to get a Master RX8, like the rotary engine. Young guy, I want to get a sports, my first sports car. So I had that on my vision board. I cut out the poster from an ad and I would look at it every day in front of me. And then what I would do is I would go to dealerships and test drive the car, okay? And I would go to different dealerships because you don't want to go to back to the same dealership, they kick you out, right? You know, I gotta go to different dealerships. And I would drive the car and I would visualize what is it like to drive the car. So I would visualize, I'm in the car, I turn on the ignition, I can hear the engine. I know the, I can smell the leather, I know the color of the red, like everything. I know exactly what I want. And I picture it so many times. And I test drove it so many times. So here's what happens. When I made enough money, I went to the dealership. I said, I want the RX8, these are the features, and these are what I want. And the sales guy was like, well, you know, Mr. Locke, let me take you to a test drive. And I said, I don't need that. Well, let me talk about the features. I don't need that. I don't need any of that. So I said, let's do the paperwork. He said, it's the fastest car he's ever done. He's never sold a car this fast. You knew exactly what you wanted. I know exactly, because I've seen it a gazillion times in my mind. so here's what's fascinating. I got the key. I did get paper work, right? I drove the car off to pick up the car off the parking lot. They happen to have the model right there. I drove off the. The. The parking lot of dealership. And Lewis, guess how I felt.

The exact same you thought beforehand. Calm. Yeah, the exact same before when you were imagining it in your mind.

That's exactly like. Because it's like, in my mind, it's.

Like you're supposed to be there.

Yeah, it's already in my car. And I was actually months ago talking to my friend when I saw like the RX8 people like a car drove by, oh, that's my car. And my friend just laughed at me, that's not your car, Dan. So I said, that's my car. Like, I'm not lying. It just in my mind, it's my car.

It's done. Like, it's done.

It hasn't got to me yet. It just hasn't got to me yet. Now I've got the key, I drove it home, my pocket, I didn't feel a thing because it's already done in my mind.

Yeah.

And that's one example, but I did it so many times in my life. YouTube channel, when I started my YouTube channel, you know what my wife Jenny said? He's exact, she said, who's gonna watch your s***? Seriously, she's, who's gonna watch your s***? Who wants to watch you?

She sees you every day, so she's like, who wants to watch you?

She's teasing, she's teasing. Let's go watch you, you know? And I said, no, you don't understand. I'm gonna build my YouTube channel. Who are like, no, it's saturated, it's not gonna work. I said, listen to me, I'm gonna get my first silver button.

100,000?

Yeah.

100,000. I cut out the silver thing, right? I'll put it on my wall vision board. I said, I'm gonna get that. And then when I hit it, my wife is like, ah, that's it, man. Like, I'm gonna get to the 1 million subs. She's like, nah, who's gonna say who's gonna watch your sh**, you know? and I had that goal and the same thing happened again and again and again and again in my life. So now I have the new vision, I want to build a unicorn, right? A tech empire. I do exactly the same thing. I have my vision, I know, and then now I'm attracting the people that can help me do that. Like now I'm looking at deals, I bought a couple deals already, like going to that direction. So I act as if I'm already there, then everything else falls into play. The people, their context, their relationships, their Capital, they just come.

Skills, everything.

Yeah, they just come.

What's the amount of money that maybe it doesn't scare you, but let's just hypothetically, let's. What's the amount of money that you're like, man, I don't have that yet. But that's a. That's a big number that maybe your billionaire friends have or whatever. You're like, gosh, that's a big number. And it's not in my. net worth yet, but what is that number that scares you?

A billion.

A billion.

A billion, yeah.

What do you think it would take for you to get there in the next three years?

It would take me to do something.

Quite.

Very different from what I'm doing now. I remember when I was making six-figure income as a copywriter. Like, yeah, 20-some-odd years old. I mean, that's good, like six-figure.

It's great money.

Yeah, like it's good money. I was happy, but then I knew in order to transition to the next level, I had to let go what I have. What got you here won't get you there. So actually, I fired all my corporate clients overnight, one night. I said all gone. I'm gonna focus on developing my own online business. And I did it probably a few times in my career. Every single time I have to reinvent myself, I have to let go. This is what's difficult. You have to let go of what works. So my biggest strength right now, what I have, It's my social media presence. That is not going to get me to the B.

Really?

Nope.

Grant's getting pretty close.

Yeah, what we're raising capital, that's with the, if it's just like influencer, right?

Right, right. I think he raised like 500 million, I think, from his, that's good.

That's a great model. That's a great model, right? And something to emulate, but am I doing software though, right? That's the only difference. So I know it's not doing this. leveraging this could be okay, but I need to change what I do to get to that.

You need to let go of something. You can't make YouTube videos all day and expect yourself to get to a.

Billion unless you're just-- and then the business cannot be just about like the just me.

It needs to be something you got to scale yourself.

Yeah.

Gosh, isn't that interesting? The thing that like is allowing us to build and generate more wealth and revenue and opportunities is the personal brand, but it's going to have to like separate some or scale around, right?

And so what the It's like this. My biggest strength is my biggest skills is my ability to close. But if I only I could close and my team can't close, I can't scale.

Can't do it.

So I need to have a closing team. So my biggest strength, once I get to the next stage, becomes my biggest bottleneck. In the same year, my biggest strength that got me to here will become my biggest bottleneck to go to the next level. So I'm aware of that and I'm already saying, okay, what do I need to do? What I need to shift? in order to get there. And I'm okay, I'm totally okay with that.

If you had hypothetical scenario, someone came to you and said, you know, I'm gonna, I get a little morbid at times, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna shoot you in your head and your entire, everyone you love and everyone you know that you care about in three years, if you don't reach a billion dollar net worth, what would you, what would change your mind now to let go of certain things? Like what would you do in the moment from now into those three years in order to make sure that happened? If you had to, obviously you can take as long as you want, but if it had to be in three.

Years, I would probably, I'm already doing it, but I would speed up the pace of me letting go of things, the current operation, right, with the transition. and I would focus 100% on the just acquisition investment side because that's the only way to get there from my perspective.

Acquisition meaning acquiring software companies that you.

Can then- Acquiring companies, yeah, and then put a group and then you go from there.

Interesting.

Yeah.

So you're already doing it. You're already doing it, but you would just- if you had a gun to your head, you'd do it faster.

I'll do it faster. I would do it faster.

Interesting.

Yeah.

What do you think is your biggest fear over the next five to 10 years as you go for the billion dollar Mark and Beyond and everything else you want to do?

Not so much the fear of business, the fear of, like, or, like, life stuff. I don't think I have a lot of that, where I think I also managed to balance quite good. Not a whole lot, not a whole lot of fears, because I'm not attached. It's not like I gotta get in three years, four years, five years. I don't really care about that. It's a challenge, as you know, it's more the, hey, I set the goal, can I get there? Who do I have to be to get there? But it's also a little bit like, can I do it? What's my potential? I think I could, but could I do it? It's like YouTube, I think I could hit a million, could I actually do it? Okay, I could, but can I get to the next level? It's more like that.

How does someone overcome the identity of imposter syndrome once they've reached the six figure mark of copywriting and oh, but how could I get to half a million or a million? I could never do that or I could never get to 10 million or 100 million or a billion. How do we overcome that identity of imposter syndrome that so many of us put on ourselves in the transition of life?

I'll share with you what works for me. It's interesting because when I was making six figure, my mentor Alan, my first mentor, he invited me to a mastermind group, okay? And it was like five, six guys, and I was the youngest guy, like I was young, and all these guys are like millionaires, successful business guys, way older than me. And I felt, you want to talk about imposter syndrome, I felt like, well, I don't belong here. I'm young, I'm not experienced, my business is only a few hundred K, like, I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be here. So I would be almost like a mouse. I wouldn't speak. I would just take notes and they would talk and all that. And after a while, I was like, something clicked in me. I started taking notes. I started hearing the problems. I see how they solve problems. And just one day, it clicked for me. These guys are just like me. They're not 10 times smarter. They don't work 10 times harder. They're just like me. And when I had that shift, suddenly the imposter syndrome disappears. Now I'm more vocal and I'm sharing. I'm like, oh, Dan's got a good idea. Like, I'm sharing. And they naturally pull me up. They're natural. And now before you know, now looking back who are not today, looking back that mastermind group, the very first mastermind group I belonged to, those guys, and they were still friends, by the way, after all these years. let's do good friends. What they have done in business now, looking back today, right? I'm looking at, okay, wow. Like that, to me, now is a small business, right? So the same thing here. I'm looking at that next level, hang around with people at that level. And something we click for you. It's like, you know what? They're smart, but they're just people.

Right?

There's nothing they can do that I cannot do. It's just like you met billionaires, you've met a number of them. What are your thoughts? Do you see them at first like, oh, maybe they're like super crazy intelligent, right? But after you hang out with them, what are your thoughts?

They all have fears and doubts and a lot of them are much older and so they have a lot more time to be able to get there. And so I'm just like, okay, they've had time to get to where they are. They always, you always have something that most of them don't if they're much older than you. And that is you have time. They have more money, you have more time. And they, from what I've noticed, they almost admire the ability to be kind and curious about their success. They admire and appreciate the curiosity that someone can bring to them because they want to be able to share their story, their success, their their, their, their skills. They want to be able to give it back, like you said. So I think when you, when I, come from a place of just gratitude and curiosity, I recognize, okay, these are usually older, older individuals who are 20, 30, 40 years older than me. And, they don't have the time, you know, obviously I could die tomorrow, but they don't have the, the youth like I do. And, there's a, there's a mutual respect in the sense that, okay, I'm hungry. I'm going after something. They've done it. and as long as I have humility, they usually open up their fears and insecurities just like that I might have.

Yes, and do you find that, are they like have three arms and four legs? Do they have 10 times more IQ?

They all had challenges and adversity they had to overcome.

And they all- and usually they do very well in one sector, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And they all kind of talk about what you said, they had to let go of something that was working at some point. and reinvent to get to the next level.

Yes.

And, and always be scaling up their thinking, not holding on to old beliefs, but like scaling up to new thoughts, new processes. And it's always been about a team of people. You know, they never did it alone. Most of them, you know, they had bigger companies with thousands of employees or hundreds of employees to get there. So it's, it's not about whereas probably me and you in the beginning in our 20s was all about how can we develop a skill and do it on our own.

Yes.

And that can only take you to so far.

That becomes a bottleneck, right?

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it's exactly that. That I think that's how we kind of eliminate or cure that imposter syndrome. When you hang around with people like that, you're, oh, they're just like me. They have the doubts, they have the fears, they have the struggles. Okay, like, it's normal. And once we normalize it, then it's like, okay, I could see. what are they doing? What are the models? What's the views of the world? I want to learn that. How they see the world, how they make decisions. And the more we do, then we'll get closer and closer. I got this from when people look at, like let's say in our world, the influencer space, right? You have the friends, the colleagues we hang out with, right? We all know, right? That's who we hang out with. And we've been hanging out in here for a long time, right? When I joined YPO, when I hang around with executive CEOs of like massive companies, like when I have these two worlds collide, first of all, they don't know each other. In fact, they don't even speak the same language. It's like it's speaking two different languages. And I noticed this is fascinating. I'm kind of in the middle, like two worlds collide. I see the finance, I see what they do, I see the leadership, the management, I see the marketing, the creativity, the innovation from here. Like I see these, I'm like, this is powerful. And I kind of take both worlds. I'm like, what if this world knows more about this world, which they don't, and this world knows more about this world, wouldn't that be more effective? And I could see the potential of that to be able to do that. Taking something, a product, but you infuse it with digital marketing, branding, social media, how powerful that would be. But they don't talk to each other. So I see an opportunity is there. That's how I see it. If I can marry the two and then do something from there.

You've been around a lot of wealthy people. What would you say are the three best habits of wealthy, rich individuals?

The myth that wealthy people are greedy. The, the wealthier they are, almost all of them, almost all of them, they are the happiest, most humble and kindest people I have met. I've never been by people in this. I have been f***ed a lot by people in like with no money.

Right. Right?

Like, seriously, these guys, they don't need to. So they are like just, they are nice, they are kind. One of my right-hand deskman, he lives in West Van, which is a wealthy neighborhood.

Right?

He was just looking at the houses and then a guy comes in, he was talking with the guy just chit chatting and the guy invites very wealthy, like we're talking 20 million dollar mansions, right? The guy invited him, hey, let me give you a tour of the house. Let me like, you know, let me have a drink. Like, it's like, these are good people. It's incredible. And so I think first one, it's they're actually very humble. They're actually not like, oh, yeah, I know everything. No, they're like, oh, they have this, this curiosity about them. They're like, they, they want to learn something. Oh, tell me a little bit more. I do. Oh, that's interesting. They have this curiosity thing about them.

They always want to learn more.

Beginner's mind. Beginner's mind. Even they know they, maybe they're very good at what they do, but they know, like, oh, I don't know that. Tell me more about that. How do you, how do you do the podcast? What does that work? Like, I remember one time I had lunch with a dinner, dinner with someone who has had, like, 20 exits, 20 exits of company. Very successful guy, okay? And I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna pick his brain. It's gonna be great. I learned a lot. You know, Louis, he joined the meeting, like just you and I. The first thing he pulled out is a notebook. He wants to ask me how I do things to take notes. I'm like, no wonder he's successful. No wonder he's successful. It's incredible. So humble, curiosity, right? And the second thing is they think big. They don't think about measly little problems. They think about how to solve, like, you solve what? A friend of mine who is the landlord of this building that we're in, he has a company, a public company, that sells solo windows. So you put these windows on your, like, this panel on your windows, it's invisible, but it can, you can capture solar energy. Solar into invisible window. Yeah, like, so you can, you can turn into electricity, right? So he's working on stuff like that. He wants, yeah, I want to put, like, I want to put this in.

All the buildings in North America.

Like, crazy. You know, they think about stuff like that, right? He also has a company that's developed, like, skin repair, like, kind of stuff, like, it's some crazy, crazy things that he's into. And I'm like, I'm not thinking about that.

Yeah.

Okay.

So they think. They think big.

They think big. Okay.

They think big.

Third best.

And the third is they always. What you just said, they always put their people first. They never say, I did it. It's my team. It's this. It's, you know, they're very, very. They're very. It's one thing I learned from them. And he taught. They taught me this. Don't use the word I. Just use we. Let's say a certain project went well. It's not my YouTube channel, it's our YouTube channel. It's not my project, it's our project. We did it. So from a leadership perspective, I learned to eliminate the word of I did it. It's just we. Even if I finish a speaking gig, we finish a speaking gig. It's not I finish a speaking gig or I was on. The team is excited that we are going on Louis Howes podcast. Oh, great. The chat is blowing up, right? It's not all me. I'm going into Louis. No, no, it's we. So I think those are the three things.

What do you believe is your greatest leadership quality and your weakest leadership quality?

My, I'll talk about the weakest first. My weakest leadership quality is I trust people too much too quick. And that has cost me tens of millions of dollars, no joke, tens of millions of dollars. A lot of the people problems that we have last year, and I'm transparent, like last year, I lay off a lot of people from the company too, that because I was trusting them, oh yeah, I think they would do a good job and I don't check.

So does that mean like a lack of training or proper onboard training to make sure that everything's up to what you, your standard.

Not even training, it's, I should have delegate a little bit more systematically, not like, hey, here you go, like, there you go, is what it is. And I don't go back and check.

Check the work, yeah.

Check the work, the quality control, and see if actually, is it the right person, the right seat? I thought they had a good attitude. That's cool. That's great. So it's like people say, hire for attitude and train for skills. No, I don't believe in that anymore. I said you better hire for skills. You want someone who's done it, who come in with skills. Because if they come in with no skills, chances are you're paying for the education. Yeah. So I would, let's say if I want someone to grow my podcast, I want someone who's built, like who's done that.

Who's already done it. Yeah.

Who's already done it. Like, oh, I work with so and so, I work with so and so. I grew the podcast to this many million downloads. Okay, you're hired.

I would say the challenge that I've found, correct me if I'm wrong, maybe you found something different. The challenge I've found is when it's almost like you have to hire for skills and attitude because I've had some people come in with great qualifications, skills, do an amazing job, but in a sense, not the right culture fit. And pulling some people away from the vision or whatever it might be. It's like you need both, which is hard to find.

Hard to find, hard to find. And it's, I don't even want to use the word attitude because it's not exactly accurate. It's the skills that fits the culture. Because when they come in, if they can be molded a bit, then it works. Some people think you cannot even do that. You just can't, it just doesn't fit. It's like, it's possible to fit into the culture. I'm not looking for like, fits like a glove day one.

Perfect, but it's, Hey, it's good enough.

Good enough. It's like, you know, get to know us. We work together. You know, we will get along, right? It's that. Yeah, I would say so.

And your greatest, greatest quality?

I can coach. I am very, in my opinion, I'm good at looking at people's talent and how to bring that out of them because as I'm a mentor to so many, so I could take someone who's, but I can groom them. So that, and I've done it for so many. So I could see, and I could probably see it better than they could see it for themselves. I always have someone, a young guy, come in and say, did he totally lose? I said, with your talent, your personality, you should focus on copywriting or you should focus on this. Like, I'm very good with that. I think that would be my biggest skill.

How do you think we can develop the skill of self-belief? I think a lot of people don't accomplish what they want because they doubt themselves so much that they don't take the actions that are required to accomplish what you want. What do you think we can do to build more self-belief and overcome the doubt that the conversation's in our head?

It's the, it's not just self-belief. I think it's self-esteem. And it's not self-confidence. They did two different things. so the self-esteem where most people actually have low self-esteem because of the way that we were brought up for most of us, right? We don't have high self-esteem. So, and we don't have high self-esteem, we go into any scenario, anything that we do want to start a career in business, we go in with the mindset of, oh, I don't know if it's gonna work, maybe it doesn't work. What if it doesn't work?

Right?

Then what I'm gonna do, right? Like all these things that's in our head.

And.

Personally, I found the best way for me personally, at least to do it, is to get small wins. I need to recondition my mind to believe. I know my mind doesn't believe. It's like my mind is very skeptical. We all have this survival brain, right? The crocodile brain is skeptical. Like, oh, I want to get, you know, I want to make a million. I want to make 10 million. I want to get a million subscribers. I want to get a million downloads, podcasts, whatever it might be. Right? Well, if we set that goal and that's good, but it's like, well, how am I going to get there? Well, let's get the first download. Let's get the first 10 downloads, your first 100 downloads. Like I need, it's almost I need that validations to strengthen my belief. So then I strategically, how can Gai create those validations to strengthen my belief? So it's like playing a mind game with yourself. It's quite fascinating. How do I trick my brain to believe that I can do this? In other words, right? So how can I bench press like, you know, 200 pounds? I can't do that. Well, let's do 50. Oh, now I can do 60. Oh, maybe I can do 70. Who knows? Oh, my friend can do 180. What the hell? Maybe I can do 100, right? It's this kind of tricks that we play and I love to do that because over the years it's worked so well for me. So I want to have those wins. It's not if I cannot bench press 150, I'm a failure. Now we never start.

Right?

And we don't take the time to acknowledge ourselves and say, 50 is good. It's good, right? Like, good. Give yourself a pat on the back. Then do a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.

Yeah.

How do you show up in life without comparing yourself to where everyone else is at? You know, where your friends are at, your successful entrepreneur friends, or people who are certain, you know, have a six-pack whatever it is, how do you develop the small wins but not be like, ah, but I'll never be like that. Or that person's got so much more money or whatever.

I am very competitive and this used to bother me a lot. It's like a feel for me. Like it's the competitive, as an athlete, you get it, right? It's like, yeah, like, I'm gonna, you need almost like a target. you know what I mean? Like, I'm gonna beat that. I'm gonna be. Be better.

Like.

And I find that works to a degree as. As motivation and your field. But it's actually. It's like diesel. It's not very healthy. It works, but it's not very healthy versus electricity. Right. It'll get you there, but it's not. It's not clean. It's not clean energy. It's true. It's not clean energy. And. But it would be like it. Sometimes how many of us. want to become more successful because we want to prove somebody wrong.

Right?

Or parents.

That was me my whole childhood.

There you go. We want to prove someone or. Or we want to show that we, you know, we're better than you think. Right.

Right.

You underestimate me or it's like a reverse thing. It's okay. Not a clean energy. Right? It's okay. And I found that it could get.

You there, but it won't be. It won't feel good.

It won't feel good. And it's actually very destructive because you probably self. explore or self sabotage to a degree. And I found that it works. And then later on, can it be very transparent?

Yeah. Okay.

I'll be very transparent. When I set up to do YouTube, I looked at Ty, Ty Lopez, I look at Grant, I look at number of, like, influencers. I said, I want my followers to be bigger than that for YouTube. At the time, I have, like, I don't know, a hundred thousand, whatever, not, not as many. I said, I'm gonna bypass them. I said, I'm gonna bypass Gary Vee. I'm gonna bypass this. That was my target. I'm just being very transparent. Yeah. And guess what? Now, let's say, now, say my YouTube, I bypass them.

So freaking what? How did it feel when you passed them with nothing? Energy, with the not clean energy of.

You know, I felt, first of all.

Nobody gives like, here, they don't give.

A. I don't really care. I don't. Like, I thought I care a lot. Once it's.

Oh, okay.

Like, you maybe, oh, we did it. Okay, then what? So, that's why, yeah. Who cares? And then I realized, actually nobody cares. Your customers, your clients don't care. Your competitors probably don't even care. You kind of care a little bit, but by the time you hit it, you don't really care either. So the whole thing is just kind of a meaningless thing. So once I get that, I'm like, this is just silly. Like, why compare? Like, it's good. If anything, I was at a clubhouse and Grant joined the call. Some people see, oh, Grant and I are competitors. I don't see that at all. I study Grant's materials, right? I buy the 10x growth recordings. I read his book, I love it. I bought probably, I don't know, 50, 60 copies to give to people. So I don't see that at all. I admire what is done to accumulate the social capital, convert it into real estate assets. no one's ever done this before. This is brilliant. I can learn something from that. I can learn something, look at what Ty is doing, what Gary V is doing, what all of them are doing. I'm like, I don't see that. And it's like, hey, we all have our own paths and it's not like, it's your ego. You have more subscribers, you have more downloads. The truth is your audience doesn't care. No one cares. It's just our own little ego cares a little bit. But when you do hit it, you don't care either, so it doesn't really matter.

Yeah, and when we focus on what I've learned with the hard way is when we focus on running our own race and becoming the best version of ourselves, reaching our vision and our potential, we don't have to be constantly saying, well, how do I beat this person or that person? We're just becoming the best version that we can be with our goals.

And we will never be happy because you can always find someone who's higher. Yes. Much higher.

So then, and there's no finish line either.

There's never a finish line. And so then it's not healthy, then we don't enjoy the moment, and it becomes very, that's why I say it's one kind of energy, but it's not very clean, it's not very sustainable. Convert it into electricity, it's better, it's cleaner, and you'll be happier. And I learned that the hard way. Surely I learned it the hard way.

Me too, man. It took me 30. I mean, tonight, when I turned 30, I realized, wow, I'm doing this the wrong way. I was able to get results and accomplish goals, but never felt good inside because I was always doing it to prove people wrong or to compete or.

To be the best. And the problem is because it works to a degree.

It does.

It's like this is like this. Like, I know it's not clean energy, but it kind of works. I'm accomplishing stuff. I'm getting stuff done. But then long term, it doesn't work. It doesn't work.

I want to ask you about martial arts. I know it's a big part of your life.

Oh, yes. I love that.

What would you say the three biggest lessons you've learned from your entire martial arts journey, whether it be from your first lesson that you took as a, you know, a young, young buck or this morning in the dojo? What's the what's the great, three greatest lessons that you've learned?

I mean, I, I love martial arts, and a lot of my business philosophies today, I learned it from martial art. Bruce Lee, of course, I'm a huge, huge fan of Bruce Lee. And I would say the three big things that I've learned, this is gonna go deep. Let's see if you can. We're gonna go deep. I'll talk about the first one. So in first one, in martial art, in anyone that's learning a style like karate, taekwondo, boxing, whatever it might be, at first we have to learn what they call the form. You gotta do the forms, right? How you do the forms, how you do a punch properly. And that's great. But then after a while, we have.

To.

Learn it, master it, and then we have to forget it. Because when you learn it, when you execute, when you're in a sparring and any kind of scenario, when you're using it, you can be, oh, he's gonna punch me this way, then I'm gonna do this, and he's gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this, it doesn't work, it doesn't flow, right? So the first lesson is flow don't fight. How do we flow with the movement? And you don't come into any scenario predetermined, oh, you're gonna throw a kick, then I'm gonna block, and then I'm gonna hit this way. It's never gonna be like that. It's just like in business, oh, what is the blueprint? Well, there's no blueprint. Because it depends on how the marketplace will react to your offer, to what you do, the customer, this is dynamic. By looking at for a blueprint, you've already failed. Because by definition, it's about never ending problem solving. Yeah, adaptability.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's all about solving bigger and bigger, bigger problems, right? There's a blueprint. So I think that would be number two to flow, don't fight. And the second one is this, I learned from Bruce Lee, I'm going to say it in his quote, I'll do my best to rephrase it, he said this, Before I learned the art, a punch is just a punch, a kick is just a kick. After I learned the art, a punch is no longer a punch, a kick is no longer a kick. And now I truly understand the art, a punch is still just a punch, a kick is just a kick.

So.

So a punch is a punch and a kick is a kick. What did he say at the end?

After I truly understand the art, a punch is still just a punch. A kick is still just a kick.

Got it.

So what he's saying is that in the beginning, when you. You don't know anything, you learn something. I don't know how to punch. Now I know how to punch. And then you learn different ways. Oh, I didn't. Like, if you don't know anything about short, you just. I'm gonna punch, like. sucker punch, right? But now, you put your hand this way, you know how to jab, you know how to uppercut, how to cross, how to hook, you know combination, right? You know how to bob and weave, you learn another kick, you know how to do all this stuff, right? But then once you learn so many things, just like in business, just like in life, you've got so many techniques, but then there's no attributes behind the techniques.

Right?

You and I can throw the same punch, we can throw a jab, Mike Tyson can throw a jab. Well, Mike Tyson's jab is a lot more deadly, still a jab, but the power, the speed behind the punch is completely different from all of us, normal people. So what Bruce was saying is, you learn all these techniques, but ultimately, how do you simplify what you do? So knowledge is daily increase, but wisdom is daily decrease. So how do you learn, you don't know nothing, you learn a lot, and then you narrow it down to not knowing a whole lot. And now you know a hun. So you, from not knowing anything now, no, 100 things. No, I just didn't know these five things that work.

Simplify.

Simplify. And simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. That would be the second big lesson I learned in martial art, that it's like now when I close someone before many years ago, I would have You know, 50 ways to close a sale. I have now one, one line.

What's that line?

What would you like to do next? That's it.

So before you learned every strategy and technique.

Oh, would you like it in blue and red, alternative clothes, puppy dog clothes, you name it, right? No, what would you like to do next? Now it's very simple, very elegant, but then there's the stuff behind the stuff. Right, so that's simplicity. I love that. Like you could, on a closing call, you could take control with just the first line. I'll demonstrate very quickly. Yeah. So if you, instead of saying, Hey, how are you? That's, you know, how are you, sir? How are you? You know? I teach, when I teach it, when I do this, I said, instead of doing that, a simple line is, what can I do for you? Now, it's very simple line, but that simple line I can deliver it with different tonality. So let me demonstrate. This is fun, this is gonna be fun. So I'm gonna do it in, I'm gonna do it wrong, then I'm gonna do it the right. Let's do it in different, so first one. So imagine if you're on the phone, I'm a closer, right? So you just, Louis, tell me like the feeling that you get from, Just raw, whatever comes to mind, okay?

Okay.

First one, first one. Hey, what can I do for you?

Desperate.

Desperate.

Excited, desperate, excited, passionate, passionate. Anxious a little bit.

Anxious, little bit salesman.

Yeah, very sleazy.

Sleazy, sleazy, sleazy, right? Okay. so second one. What can I do for you?

Nervous, scared, unsure, uncertain.

Yeah.

Not believing yourself. Not.

Okay, let's try the third one. What can I do for you?

Not credible.

Not credible.

Not credible. More like.

People pleasing a little bit.

People go lucky.

Fake, a little bit fake, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A little bit fake. Okay, fourth one, and I'll do the last one. Fourth one. What can I do for you?

Not caring.

Not caring.

Don't care about the job. Don't want to be here.

Don't want to be here, right? Okay, last one. What can I do for you?

Certain, clear, certain, clear. Trustful, trusting.

Yeah.

So it's one line. It's the same punch. It's the attributes behind the punch. So we're not talking about different closing lines or scripts or even how you close. I'm just talking just the opening. I have lost or made a sale with just one line.

Wow.

Right?

Just with my tonality. I haven't talked about your needs. I haven't talked about budget. I haven't talked about anything.

Anything.

If I say, hey, what can I do for you? I've already lost a sale. I don't need to continue 45 minutes for the rest of the call. I've already. I've finished. I've lost the deal. So just. That's attributes. One simple line, right? So that's where the death that comes in. It's a jab, but it's a Mike Tyson jab or just a regular Joe jab.

Right?

This is, you know, that's the difference. That's powerful.

That's a good distinction.

Yes, okay.

And then the last one would be for so as Bruce Lee talks about that and then I love his philosophy and his very famous famous quote he said be water my friend Be water my friend. It's about emptying the cup and We notice in martial art that and that's why I love Bruce Lee's martial art philosophy It's the jing dong that's his martial art style means the weight of the intercepting fist and It is not about, hey, you have a Japanese karate style, Korean kicking style, or Thai boxing, or whatever it is about learning these things, accumulation, and then strip away what doesn't work, what works for you, and then you combine that together. So it's not like I'm a judo guy, I'm a kickboxing guy. No, like I can kickbox, but I can also do judo. so it's like this. I am not a copywriter. I can do copywriting. I am not a YouTuber, but I know how YouTube works. I'm not a public speaker, but I could speak. So I see those as skill sets. It's not my identity. It's just a skill set that I have, and I can combine all those. So you see how. How what I do, like martial outfits into everything I do, like, that's.

Absolutely. I want to talk about identity for a second because I think this is a topic that can hold a lot of people back or could propel them forward. How should we be thinking about our identity in terms of the words we use, the attachments we have to a self-identity, the things we do, or how should we be unattaching to identity? What's your philosophy about identity in general?

I have an Instagram, one of my most popular Instagram graphics, a cartoon. It's a picture of a person and then with a chain ball in the back, right? And the quote is, Most people don't become who they want to become because they're too hurt. You cannot become who you want to become because you're too attached to who you were. You're too attached to who you were from the past. And I think our identity changes with us.

Right?

So in the beginning, maybe you see yourself as a athlete, and then you see yourself as an entrepreneur, and then you see yourself as, say, a podcaster. You see yourself as an influencer, as a celebrity influencer. Like, I think it changes with us. The key is making sure that the identity actually serves us and is who we want to be.

Right?

And I like the identity to be just a little bit. a couple steps ahead of who it should be fake. You feel a little bit uncomfortable.

What's your current, what's your current identity?

So you've talked about branding or you're talking about my own personal, personal business, a life.

What would you, how would you identify? If I said, hey, who are you? What do you do? What would your identity response be?

I love that. I love that. So the, the branding wise is king of closing. I wonder, that's what ClosIng in person, in print, online, offline. That's what I focus. That's what people like to pitch and hold you. You need to give them something to pitch and hold you. Just like the school of greatness, right? People need to pitch. Once they get to know you, they know you're just searching much more than that. But they need something to grasp, to latch onto. In terms of self-identity is really the CEO of a tech investment firm. that's how I see my identity. But I know the gap and I know, okay, what do I need to do to become that? So who are, how I see myself, which is very different from looking at just what I do now. You can see, right?

What was the hardest, what was the identity that was the hardest to let go of at a period of your life, whether it was, I don't know, copywriter to entrepreneur to single to married or, you know, No kids to kid. Like, what's been the most challenging thing to let go of identity wise? For me, it was athlete. Like, that was my whole life. And then when it ended, I was like, what do I do with the rest of my life? This is my life, and now it's gone. And I had to learn to let it go and reinvent.

I would say it is from.

I.

Think it's from a marketer to CEO. That's probably the most difficult for me.

Why was that challenging?

Because it's like, this is what I'm good at. This is what I've been doing my whole life.

That's why you make your money.

Yeah, this is why I make money. This is what I know, right? And to transition that to being a CEO where you don't actually, you don't want to be the best marketers for your company. You don't want to be the- It's.

Hard to find someone to replace you.

Yeah, like how do I find someone? No one knows it. And especially for us, it's our personal brand.

That's even harder.

Who knows how to promote Louis House better than Louis House?

Yeah, it's so hard, man.

Right?

Like how do you do that? So I think transitioning that, that was the most difficult. But I'm glad I made a transition. But that transition was hard. And I think I'm still transitioning. Not done yet. Not done yet. But it's better.

We'll probably always be marketers in a sense. We'll always be marketing, but maybe we won't always be marketers.

Marketers.

Yes, exactly. It's like we'll always be using marketing to generate leads and sales, to build something that we want to build, whatever it might be. It's our personal brand, tech, software, anything.

Yes.

Yes, it's tough.

It's tough. It's a tough one. Because it's such a powerful skill. And then to transition to leading, to have other people perform those skills that you know, maybe for you and I jump in, it's easier.

It's easier.

No, I can't do that to scale. That's a struggle. That's a struggle.

How do you remove yourself and empower marketers? I have an army of marketers.

An army of marketers. And, and, and we, in the reality is we could only do so much. Like, we cannot do, create content and then optimize the content and YouTube and Instagram and Clubhouse and, and pay ads and funnel and hard emails and, I mean, you know, you name it. Right, it's too much. With every, with 10 new social media.

Apps coming out a year, it's hard to be everything. It's too much.

It's too much. And then we don't want to miss out, right? We want kind of be on it. But then, And every single one of those things takes bandwidth. It just takes time. And you still need to grow the business. And you still need to manage the team.

And take care of your health.

And you still want to be healthy and take care of your health and exercise. And the relationship, you still want to spend time with your loved ones and your family. And this is not easy. It's not easy. It's crazy. But I did learn something though. A few months ago, I had my friend, Brian Scudamore. from 1-800-GOT-JUNK CEO. He came to the studio, I asked him this question and I think you'll love this. I said, brian, talk to me, man. Talk to me. I want to know, right? So his company is doing almost half a billion dollars a year in revenue, or half a billion dollars. And I said, tell me the truth. Running a company's half a billion dollars, right? Come tell me like the, what's it like? And he said on the interview, he said, Dan, running like a $500 million company, It's way easier than a $50 million company.

Really?

Instead of running a $50 million company, it's way easier than a, you know, than $5 million. And $5 million is way easier than $500k.

Wow, 'cause you're doing it all on.

Your own at 500k. That's it? I said, no, I first I said, nah, there's no way. Like, it's almost like I don't, I'm a little bit skeptical. I'm like, I don't believe that. But tell me a little bit more. Show me your schedule. So, show me your schedule. So go to the office how many days a week? Come on, tell me the truth, man. You sleep in the office? No, go to the office one day a week. I said, what? One day a week. What happens to the other days? Well, you know, most days he works in Starbucks, right? Starbucks before the COVID a few hours a day. He takes like three days, two to three days off a week. He takes two months off a year. I'm like, what the heck? He said, yeah, because I've got the team, I've got the people, I've got everything it runs. I'm like, bingo. That, it just tells me.

It probably took him decades to train the team and find a team and build the culture and the systems and processes. I mean, that's the work.

He would say, Dan, when I was doing a million dollars a year with 1-800-Got-Junk, it's him hauling the trucks and, you know, removing junk. He said, now it's like we do a million, couple million a day. I don't know how he does it.

I'm not doing nothing. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, nothing, I'm not.

He's got a very strong integrator, like very strong president running the company. So he's like, he makes all the decisions. He just, he does his visionary work, strategies. So we hang out here for half a day. He talks to me, and then won't ask me about social media. It just says, does his stuff. I mean, it's awesome. I learned from that. I'm like, okay. Like we, that's a goal. That's a role model. So bigger is actually easier. They have more time off. It's not a hustle, hustle, hustle kind of thing. So that's what I learned. I hope that's useful.

Yeah, it's good. What's a belief and a thought that you have in your mind? Maybe it's a little thought or a little belief. It's not strong all the time, but maybe it's still there, a thought or a belief that holds you back. Again, maybe it's not like constantly in your mind always, but it's there. It's still there. It still lingers. It still tries to hang out with you.

Maybe it's a little bit of the I'm not ready. Ooh, yeah, I'm not ready. Not the I'm not good enough. I handled that a long time ago. it's. I'm not ready. Like, am I ready right now? We're looking at a. At a tech deal, right? It's pretty sizable. I'm like, we could pull the trigger. Am I. Am I ready to. To run that? Like, you know, because it's attack, it's got a CTO. Like, oh, you know, am I ready for that? Like, to. To make that leap. Right. It's like that. That's. That's. That would be the big one. I think that one is the one that's holding me back. otherwise I would have gone faster.

When do you think you'll know you're ready? And when should people know when they're ready for anything in their life?

I think I don't think we'll be ready. One thing I did say that my mentor taught me, he said, Dan, you'll never be ready. You just need to be comfortable. You just need to be comfortable enough to make the decision to pull the trigger. So I'm looking and I'm like, I don't think I'll be ready until I'm in it. Just like you won't know you can have a podcast with so many listeners until you kind of do it. Until you do your first show, your 10th episodes or 100th episodes, right? Then it's like, oh, I can do this, right? It's that. It's like now we are setting up the on the investment side, like raising capital. Am I ready for that? How would the world perceive that? What would that look like? Now you're dealing with regulations and all that stuff, it comes with it. Am I ready for that? I have that. I think that would be the one that's holding me back.

And.

When you have a negative thought in your mind, whether it's that or just a limiting thought, let's say maybe it's not negative, but it's a limiting thought, how do you let it go? How do you not let it consume your mind and, and really hold you back in that moment or in your life?

Goes back to I need, I need the, the, the validations from the environment. So then when I feel that little bit of, oh, am I ready? So then I would call the people, like my mentors and all that, they have colleagues, advisors, they have done it, and they would be like, okay, why do you think you're not ready? Well, you know, I don't, I'm not so sure about this. What about this piece is going to run this with the product after I buy it, would it tank? What if it's, I don't, I don't know. If it is some technological stuff that I'm not aware of, I mean, that would be a big problem. Did we just have a CTO to take up, do the due diligence that they would kind of their left brain and say, do this, do this and this. Are you okay? Are you comfortable with it? I'm saying, I'll be more comfortable, right? Well, what if you do the deal in a way that you do some down payment, but then you do an earn out, so you know the guy will stay for at least a year, year and a half. Would that give you more comfort? I said, yeah, that would give me more comfort. So they would teach me how to use techniques and business acumen to make me more comfortable, right? Yeah. So it's that kind of thing, which I may or may not be aware of, or even I know, but then they would tell me, maybe you never thought about it in this way. And that helps a lot. So that's how I need to do it. Like, I'm not a guy that sits and then suddenly from not knowing or from no belief to belief, I need those micro things that move me forward. It's a little as I know it sounds so silly. Like I talk about the investment fund, it's as little as let me talk to a lawyer and start the paperwork. Like it's that.

It's just doing it.

Yeah, let's just let me do the first step, right? Forget getting all registered. Let me just, let's do the favor work first. The first step of favor work. Let's do a name search of the fun. You know what I mean? Like little thing. Let me talk to someone who's running as fun as this size. What was that like? Like that little thing. I need to do those little things for myself.

The small wins.

Small wins. Just small like, I could do that. I won't hesitate to do that. And it's no big risk.

Right.

Let me buy the domain name. Let me get the Instagram handle.

Let me get a logo going. Let me get a logo going. Yeah, it's that.

It's that.

I'm curious. I know it sounds silly. I know it sounds silly.

It works, though. It works. I'm curious. Who was the most important figure in your life growing up? And what was the greatest lesson that they taught you?

My mom. It would be my mom. There's no comparison, no comparison. Just because my mom, single mom.

Really.

Being here, sacrificed so much, raising a kid who I was very rebellious, right? And being entrepreneurial, not wanting to go to school, not doing well in school and say, I'm going to be entrepreneur, I'm going to do this. And my mom is the furthest, like my personality and my mom is like the opposite. she cannot believe I'm doing what I'm doing. And she's got, she's an introvert, very kind, humble. But that would be the. The. From a personal perspective, you're talking about from a business perspective, like business figure, Jack Ma. It would be Jack Ma.

Yeah.

One of my dreams.

Some.

Someday I can interview him on my show.

Have you met him?

No, I have not. I would. I have not. He would be. He would be on top of my list. Number one.

He seems very inspiring. Some of the videos I've seen of him, he seems.

Yeah, I have so many questions. I want to ask. Yes.

So what was the greatest lesson your mom taught you then?

My mom. My mom is someone that has no enemies in life. Like, she is like she would go to, like, buy groceries, and she would get to be friends with everybody. Everybody, see her name is Mei, right? English. Mei, hey, everybody would know her. Everybody likes her. And like, it's, there's something about that. And she has very life, like long-term, long-term friends and relationships. I'm like, yeah, that inspires me. Because sometimes in business we're so focused on goals and all these, you know, things we're gonna accomplish and big things and build things and we're like, maybe we don't take the time to, to nurture the, the relationships. And I'm guilty of that. I'm guilty of that just as everybody else.

Right.

And I think that I could do better in that. Like that. She would be my role model.

Yeah.

And what's your advice for people that want to make money and want to build their business, but also have an intimate relationship, whether it's be married or not be married, but be with a partner and thrive in life. What are some of the questions you should ask before getting in an intimate relationship in order to know if your financial success will happen or not?

That's why you're the best. You ask the best questions. Seriously. Seriously. You will only be as successful as your spouse allows you to be.

Oh.

Tell me more.

So if you are an entrepreneur, you better have that conversation day one. You better not, not like sugar coated, you better not. So one thing I, when I met my wife, my Jenny so many years ago, right? We're now together 13 years, right? First month when we were dating, I said, Jenny, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm kind of a workaholic. I'm not a typical boyfriend. Like a lot of stuff that you think a boyfriend would do, I just won't do or I don't have time to do. This is my dream, this is my goal. I laid it all out, like in a dinner table. I said, what's your goal? What are your dreams? And at the time she told me I wanted to go to Disney, I made a whole list. I said, Baby, these are all your dreams. I promise you, I'm gonna make all of them come true. that's my close. I'm gonna make every single one. Take care of your dad, take care of your family. I'm gonna do all that for you.

Right.

But at the same time, knowing a lot of stuff I'm just. I cannot do or I. I'm not good with that. Are you okay with that? I'm not a typical boyfriend or husband.

Right.

And Jenny did a little. Just a couple months ago at a virtual event we did for my students, she was roasting me. in a funny way. She's like, yeah, I'm like non-romantic I forget her birthday, I forget anniversary. It says like that kind of stuff, but it's better to communicate that upfront because you cannot have a spouse that is not 100% on board. They would destroy your progress, you would self-sabotage. Imagine you're doing your thing, hey, I'm growing the business, right? I'm building something. Well, you don't care, how come you don't spend as much time with me? How come you're on the computer all the time? Or how come, it just doesn't work? You know, why do we need so much? Imagine you have a spouse say, oh, Luz, it's okay, you already have a lot down on your sister, you need to grow. It's okay, I'm happy. I don't need more. Don't get more from me. You're like, that's not helping. That's not helping me, honey. This is not helping at all. Like, I'm going through a lot of shit.

Yeah.

Like, don't be telling me that it doesn't help me. Right. So if the spouse is not a hundred percent on board, it's just not gonna work.

Yeah.

This is hard. It's just. This is hard. This is not a nine to five.

This is hard, man.

This is not nine to five of. Oh, you know, we get off work Friday. Let's have a drink and Saturday. Like, I don't need to think about what I do.

No. What's a weekend? What's a weekend?

Yeah. Like 24 7, man. It's 20. like, we don't. Is it Sunday? Is it Monday? Who cares? Who cares? Like, no, no, I know what the marketplace doesn't care. So the spouse be upfront, tell them better than sugar coated. And then later on, they find out their expectations are not the same. And if you, and if you want a lot of money, like, I mean, you want to have wealth and your spouse has negative association with money. or they don't like money or they don't want a lot of money, you got a problem. You will have a big problem because this would, I've seen it again and again.

What are a couple questions you should ask the other person when you're, you know, getting ready for commitment and whether it be together as a boyfriend, girlfriend or just, yes, marriage. What are two or three questions you should ask to make sure you know? financially. This is the reason.

I don't know what is the perfect question. He's what I asked.

Yeah.

And just what I asked. I said, what's your ideal life? What would the ideal life look like?

And if she said, My ideal life is my husband being home half the.

Time and being around and not gonna work. Yeah.

Coming back at four o'clock every day a little early.

And I want you to disconnect and just spend time with the kids. Don't, okay, that's not gonna work. It's not gonna work, right? I also asked, what's your ideal husband? What would you expect from a perfect ideal husband, right? All that. And then I also ask her, what's your, we call that your landmine. What's something that I won't go there and I won't touch? And she knows mine and I knows Jenny's and that's why we never go there. There's certain things where, you will never say that. And she'll tell me, Never say that to me. You go there, we're done. Like, it's just gonna be bad. So I never say certain things. Ever. We can be arguing. We could be that. We don't. You just never go there. And that's why we don't argue, because we know each. We. That's your. That's the mind field. That's my line. You don't touch it. We just don't go. Like, example. Like, you know, example. I know a friend of mine. His thing is. with the spouse. He hates when the spouse walks away. Like, as women's like, I don't want to argue. I just. I don't want to talk. His thing is like, when that happens, he just. He. He flips.

Explodes.

Yeah, he just explodes. But she just doesn't want to be. She just wants a distance, but he just explodes. So when they communicate, it's like, don't ever do that. Then she doesn't do it, and they're okay.

What's the. What's the thing you appreciate about? her the most in your life?

Being such a supportive wife, because I am. To me, I'm. I'm not a good husband, as far as I'm concerned, quite frankly. Like, it's just Valentine's Day. Okay.

Yeah.

Nothing. No flowers, nothing. I don't. It's. We were driving. It's like, oh, I see. What's it? Oh, it's it.

Oh.

February 24th? Oh, happy Valentine's Day. Oh, happy, okay. Like, she doesn't get mad. She's like, like that to me, it's, I'm really appreciative. I'm just not good with those things. Like, it's not. But our relationship is great because she understands. Like, I will show my love and care in a different way. In a different way, not the, because my mind is occupied so much with other things. that I'm just, I don't spend time with, I don't spend time thinking about those things. But that's, I think one thing I've, and she, we actually, we work in a business together. So we are 24/7 together all the time, like for 10. So we see each other, we live together, we work together 24/7 for like, I don't know, how many years now, right? And we don't, we're good, like we don't get tired of each other, we don't, you know, so that's, I'm great.

You'Re, you're both aligned. you're both aligned with the expectations.

Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't need to. Oh, I need to get away from. From my spouse. I need to get away from, like, I. I. We don't have that.

And when. And when do you feel the most loved in your life?

When. Because, you know, the five love language, you know, the. The. The. What's the affirmations? Touch. Yeah.

Service.

So. So service. Mining service. mine is service, active service. So that's when I feel most love. So when she's supportive, when she's helping me and then I feel love.

In the last year through, it's really been a year now since the pandemic started. When was your heart the biggest? When did you feel the most warmth, the most love, the most intensity of like your heart expanding the most?

When it would be when I made a decision to let go of some of the people on the team and the existing team members was very supportive because I thought it would disrupt the company a lot because you think about like the morale, the spirit, what that is like. And then we're talking maybe 40% of people. Wow.

Let them go.

Yeah, that's a big cut, right? And to be able to do that and then finding the team actually more united, better connection, happier and just like, yeah, that just warms me up. like, it's, it's incredible because, because, because with what we do, we spend, I spend more time with my team than with my family because in business all the time. So, so we're very close. And to be able to, to see that and, and they, because they could easily be, oh, yeah, you know, now I'm just, I'm not the demotivated. I'm this. And, like, they could go very wrong. Right. But not one person. I mean, like, not one person did that. That was just incredible. That motivates me even more and say, okay, we gotta grow. Because I could grow so I could be able to reward them even better.

What's one thing that you're proud of that most people don't know about you? Maybe it's not public information or it's not talked about that much.

One thing I'm most proud of. I'm trying to think.

It's not in your bio. It's not in your about me page. It's.

It's.

I think some people know this, but the. The proudest moment would be now I share with you at 17. My. My mom and dad got divorced.

Right.

So then 7-16. And then my dad went bankrupt at 17. So he stopped sending us money at 17 years old when I was 17. My mom has never worked a day in her life. So, like, we were living off of whatever little savings that we had. And that's how I got into business because I wanted to make money, right? And I had a lot of resentment towards my dad at that time. I actually didn't talk to him for a few years. For a few, I didn't even talk to him. He would send me faxes, fax machine, and I'll never reply. Because I was pissed off basically. Like, why did you, why, why you divorce my mom and you don't send us money? What's wrong with you, right? Right, like at that time I didn't know what he was going through now. I know but at that time I was very, I was 17 years old.

Sure.

Teenager, right? And afterwards I talked to my dad again and many years later I was making more money. So there was this, we're talking many, many years later. I'm like way 10 years later more than that. And I know my dad was struggling financially. so I was in Hong Kong. I remember I took him. So now we're okay. Like, we.

We.

He saw me. He was, like, hugging me and kissing me. And by the way, my dad never kissed and hug anybody. Like, he's kind of a Asian father, like, sure.

Yeah. Like, but he was hugging me, kissing me, crying.

I'm like, what the hell is going on? Right? So was that the first time you've seen him in a long time or many, many years? His hair is, like, great. Like, it's, like, many, many years. And I took him to. In Hong Kong, we were walking. Right and I said, hey, is that I said that I mean you see that window there? I said yeah, yeah, so I said window there, right I said you see that right there? Okay, and I I pulled out set of keys from my from my pocket. I said dad that's your unit.

And.

I put on his well, I put on his hands and I never forget the look. His first person was shocked, but he.

Was.

Like just speechless. Because think about that, he wasn't supporting me. You know, he made some mistakes and now going back and now it's like to him, I'm guessing, but it's like, don't worry, your son is fine. I take care of mom, I take care of you, the wife. And then my dad, all he did, I still remember, he was right here. He put his hand on my shoulders, right? He said, my shoulders like this. He said, looking at me, he said, Let's get lunch. That's all I need is here. And there was, and a few years later, then, you know, fortunately passed away, but that was a very special moment that we had. I never forget that. That was the proudest thing, more than anything I've ever done. And it doesn't matter all the none of none of that. That was the moment for me.

That's the moment for me. Give me chills just hearing that. That's beautiful, man. What's the one thing or one question you wish more people would ask you that they don't ask you?

It's not so much a question I'm trying to think is I would wish more people would get to know, not get to know me more is.

How.

Should I describe that? It makes me reflect, that's why I'm taking the time. It's the I wish people would see beyond and actually get to know me more. It doesn't matter if the content doesn't matter what it is. I don't know what is a question, but I wish more people would know that.

What do you wish people would get to know more about you Beyond what they see online?

That I'm teacher at heart, that I'm a teacher at heart.

That.

That's my. My passion. My passion. And we talk about business accomplishment, but I think at the end of the day, I'm a teacher at heart.

That.

That's. That's my. My passion, and that's what I want to do. That's my. purpose, right? Doesn't matter how big my company gets, I still want to allocate part of my time teaching. Yeah, that's that, that would be it. And if they would be, if they are, they need help and they're willing to learn and they, I just, I wish they could see that they could, you know, doesn't matter as closing and skills doesn't matter, but there's something, because I could see what I've done for so many, there's something that I saw, maybe something I could do, I don't see a lot of people could do, to do. That's a little bit different. That's a little bit different. A lot of my students, they call me Sifu because Sifu is like Sensei in, in Japanese martial art. Sifu is like the mentor in martial art term, right? In Asian martial art. So they all call me Sifu. So it's like Mentor. And, and I take that word very seriously. So I wish more people could see that.

Yeah, that's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, I'm learning a lot from you, man. I appreciate you sharing, and I've got a lot to learn from you for many, many years, so I'll be. I will learn from you, man.

It's mentor learning from mentor, of course, man.

Yeah. And hopefully we can hang more soon in person and can pick your brain some more.

Absolutely.

Just a couple questions left for you. Before I ask, before I ask them, I want to make sure people check you out on social media. I mean, you're everywhere. Millions and millions of followers. Dan Locke or Dan Locke official on different platforms, YouTube, millions of followers, Instagram, Facebook, all that. So I want people to follow you. You also have a A, what is it? The smartchallenge.com, create your personalized roadmap to an unbreakable business in five days or less. I'm assuming it's a free challenge that people can go through for five days.

So the smart challenge, we do this.

Live.

We just finished one, we do this two to three times a year, which is a five day, I take them through everything that kind of what I am doing, to be more recession proof and pandemic proof, right? Because it's one thing to be recession proof, it's a whole other thing to be pandemic proof. So I walk through the business model, how I do social media. Basically is this, in this five days I teach, how do you use social media, combine it with a scalable business model, and how do you scale with a remote team? That's what the five days is about, right? And it's like, I think it's 40, 50 bucks for the five for the challenge. So not free challenge, but 50 bucks to get it live. And every single time we do it, we get huge, huge response. Like people just, just love it.

There you go. The smartchallenge.com for that to help you for your business in the future and now in recession or pandemic or anytime to really just become more bulletproof, really, as a business. And how else can we support you before I ask the final two questions?

I would say is if there's anyone listening to this, if they're entrepreneurs, if they're in a tech space, if they're looking for capital, looking for partners, that's what we're growing. That's the space that we're in. So they're software founders, if they feel that there's some synergy, just contact us. I'd love to hear from them.

Yeah, do you know Dan Martell?

Yes.

Should, you know, he's in the SaaS space. World. I'm not sure if that's part of the tech SaaS world you're looking at or more.

It is. It is. Dan actually coaches me on two of my SaaS.

Oh, there you go.

Yeah.

Smart guy. So, yes. But if you're in the tech world, reach out to you. So, I'll have people do that for sure. Okay. This is a question I ask everyone at the end. It's called the three truths. So, I'd like you to imagine a hypothetical situation that it's your last day on Earth, many, many years away. you get to live as long as you want, but eventually you got to turn the lights off, Dan.

Yes.

And you have created and accomplished everything, business, relationships, life, everything you've ever want to put out and make, it's happened. But for whatever reason, hypothetically, you've got to take it all with you to the next place. You've got to take this interview, your books, your content, your courses, the businesses, they go with you. So no one has access to this information anymore or any of your written word or audio or video. But you get a piece of paper and a pen, you get to write down on the last day of the three biggest lessons that you would share with the world, or what I like to call three truths. What would you say would be those if you could only share three things?

Wow, that's a deep one. Wow. It makes me reflect my whole life, my mind is like spinning. Wow, that's a good question. I gotta learn from that. That's such a good question. As an interviewer, holy sh--, So I can only write down on a piece of paper to communicate to the next level.

This is all they would have left to remind you by you as your teacher at heart. So what would you share with the world? These three truths, three lessons. And this is it. They don't get anything else.

It's not this difficult. Okay, so the first one would be, The first one would be you are not your business. I would say you are not your business. Okay, that's the first one.

What does that mean?

Meaning that business is an entity. that gets you from point A to point B, that it shouldn't be too attached to it. That you build it, you leverage it, you work within it, but it's not you. You're not your business.

Okay, that's number one.

You're not your business. You're like, seek fulfillment, not accomplishment. Because that would be the biggest mistake that I made early, probably in the first 30 years, like when I hit 30 years old. Seek fulfillment, not achievement. And a third would be act as if there's no limit to your abilities. Act as if there's no limit to your abilities. that's what I could come up with today, but maybe when I'm 10 years older, it's something different. But my current state of mind, I.

Would say, of course, those are powerful. I appreciate that. Well, Dan, I want to acknowledge you for a moment because it's been fun to watch your journey over the years continue to evolve and transition in your identity and reinvent and serve people. Obviously, you're a business, successful business leader, but you're in service of helping others in your business, which I think is the greatest business to have is when you're helping people, teaching people. giving them tools, skills to improve the quality of their life. And, I want to acknowledge you for being a renaissance man. I love meeting people that are interested in other things than just the main thing. You're interested in martial arts, you're interested in other areas of life, and I appreciate the qualities of learning different disciplines and acknowledge you for being a master than more than one thing and focusing then more than just business and money. And also for your joy. I think when we think of business leaders at times, we can think of these joyless, driven to succeed, money hungry, corporate leaders with no soul. But you know, we've connected a few times in person and obviously online and you bring joy. And you know, even with the suit buttoned up and clean and sharp looking, you can still bring the joy and the humor and the the inner child out, which I really appreciate and acknowledge. So, I want to share that with you and acknowledge you.

And, my friend, I also want to say that you are an inspiration to me. You may or may not know, but even so many years ago, I listened to your podcast, like you inspire me. And, it's just vice versa, the respect seeing you grow, seeing, I think I would resonate and understand you more because I could see the, the, what you've gone through, the brand and, and the identity and, and everything that you've gone through. So it's, this is not because I'm on your show. I'm just saying I just want to acknowledge that, like, to be able to do that from an, and how many athletes want to transition to entrepreneurs can do it well.

Very few.

I appreciate. Very few. Thank you. Very few. So, so I just want to say, yeah. Appreciate it, man. Brings the greatness within me as well.

So you inspire Of course, man. Well, I'm excited to do more stuff together and continue building the friendship, man. I'm appreciative. 100% Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

To become more than you thought you could be.

There it is. Dan Locke, my man. Thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

Thank you, man.

Thank you, man. If you're looking for more greatness in your life, make sure to check out this video right here. And also check out our free PDF, the Three Secrets to Unlock the Power of youf Mind to help you change your life. Download it right here. Turn 5,000 bucks into zero instantly.

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